Spaces for Wholeness

            Wendy Cadge's book Paging God; Religion in the Halls of Medicine (2012) beautifully explores the notion of the chaplaincy in hospitals, and how it has changed over time in North American hospitals, both in meaning and in appearance. I have been learning quite a few interesting points from this book. For one, I never realized prior to reading this book how much hospitals in North America have historically been tied to religious spaces, such as the Christian church. In fact, hospitals originally arose from hospices, places where pastoral care was a frequent driving force for healing both the physical body and the spirit. Only recently have hospitals become more focused on healing the physical body through science, as opposed to the more holistic goal of healing the whole person. 
         It has only been recently, it seems, that chaplaincy has become an established discipline in its own right, with the growing pressures to validate or certify all health-care professionals . Cadge also chronicles an accompanying urge to neutralize chaplain spaces so that no one is excluded from spiritual practices in hospitals. For example, she notes how chaplaincy spaces in hospitals are often stripped of any religious symbols or furnishings, so that people of all denominations can feel welcome. Where possible, pulpits and other furnishing in traditional churches are equipped with wheels,  so that spaces can make way for other denominations. It is difficult to say whether perhaps too much neutrality can end up diminishing the spiritual capabilities of a space. For example, Cadge reports  chaplaincy places in hospitals where hardly anyone attends, because the spaces are so bare, save for the occasional abstract painting or gurgling fountain (p.67). It seems that without overt spiritual or religious symbolism, people may be at a loss as to how to use public spaces for personal spiritual practice, such as meditation or prayer.
    Cadge's observations are perhaps not surprising, considering a long-standing debate over the value of imagery and iconography in spiritual practice. Some spiritual practices heavily rely on images as pointers or symbols that help guide practitioners to an insight into themselves or their nature. Others feel that all spirituality is completely internal, and it is not valuable for practitioners to rely too heavily on  external images for support. Negotiating what belongs or does not belong in a place of meditation or worship might involve a tug of war between conflicting views of what spiritual spaces should be able to furnish for people.
    As I read Cadge's book, I become more aware of how problematic geographically locating spiritual practice can be. Where are spaces of spiritual learning and wholeness, exactly, and can anyone really leave a particular space to naturally furnish that for people?  What happens when people look to a particular space to provide them with spiritual inspiration, be it in the form of a quiet meditation room, or a prayer hall, or the like? My feeling is that it's hard for a space to speak to people's spiritual needs unless it points to something that teaches, guides, or informs the person in some way. It is also hard for a space to 'become' spiritually inviting unless there are communities of practitioners actively and regularly using that space. For example, simply attending a quite space is not going to automatically make a person want to meditate, even those who have a prior background of meditation experience. Even something that is presented as 'neutral' or non-intrusive can end up becoming an obstacle to practice, simply because it does not invite practice to arise. It gets overlooked, unless some group of practitioners can see the image's potential to point to a contemplative experience.
     The interesting point I also found in Cadge's work is: I cannot help but feel that the natural imagery and 'abstract art' found in some chaplaincy spaces in hospitals owes something to a similar "Zen" aesthetic found in certain paintings or poems. But I think the main difference is that whereas those traditional Zen arts are trying to point to mind, I am not sure if the natural or abstract images found in hospital meditation rooms are accomplishing the same thing. It's tempting to say that any form of art or scenery that is 'minimal' can encourage a place for contemplative or reflective practice. On the other hand, neutrality often has a way of being overlooked or habituated, especially if people haven't yet caught inspiration to practice meditation or contemplative practices. So I think that a further study is warranted into what spiritual space in hospitals really do for people, and how they are experienced by different kinds of practitioners.


Cadge, Wendy, (2012), Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Huxley and the Meaning of Charity

Every now and then, I come across a book that attempts to 'say it all' about what makes life meaningful. Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy is one such a book. I have to say that Huxley's understanding of human beings and his humaneness shows throughout this book. And I am humbled when reading it, because there are many instances where I am seeing a tall mountain in his writings and saying, "wow, that's quite a high place to scale! I have a long way to go!"  Good writers perhaps give us a glimpse of this mountain. I think the trick is not to make readers feel terrible about their position in relation to that mountain but, more so, to inspire them in the process of contemplating and engaging the mountain itself.

Huxley has a chapter on "Charity" where he talks about a kind of ideal love that is not blemished by desires or  lusts. He cites different spiritual texts and religious viewpoints to show a kind of current that runs throughout religious writings. I want to share the following quote:

 "We can only love what we know, and we can never know completely what we do not love.  Love is a mode of knowledge, and when the love is sufficiently disinterested and sufficiently intense, the knowledge become unitive knowledge and so takes on the quality of infallibility." (p.81).

Already, my brain starts to crackle as I am reading these lines. Can love be a 'mode of knowledge'? How does that work? The dominant paradigm in scientific circles, at least, is to see knowledge as something detached from love. But then, as I read these sentences, I reflect: is it not the case that we only know deeply what we are capable of loving deeply? If my experience of something is only cursory and lacks the passion of involvement, can I really say I 'know it' well? To know is to spend time with something, at least on a regular basis. For example, there is a qualitatively vast difference between reading about a cat or dog in an anatomy textbook, and sitting down with a cat or a dog to interact. In this regard, I can even think of a regular meditative practice as a form of love. It is committed,  it is repetitive (to a certain extent), and it involves revisiting the same situation with new eyes each time. And this kind of involvement is a simple curiosity which might start with something small and stay with smallness. Seeing the universe in a drop of rain might be one example of what kind of knowing the love of simple things might yield if one waits for it to happen.

But Huxley doesn't just stop here. He refers to the idea that "when love is sufficiently disinterested and sufficiently intense, the knowledge becomes unitive knowledge". It's interesting for me to see the words 'disinterested' and 'intense' in the same sentence. Can love be both disinterested and intense a the same time? In order to understand Huxley's view, we have to read further to see what isn't love, in Huxley's eyes. Huxley remarks, "Where there is no disinterested love (or, more briefly, no charity), there is only biased self-love, and consequently only a partial and distorted knowledge both of the self and of the world of things, lives, minds and spirit outside the self." (p.81). So, Huxley is saying that disinterestedness is the hallmark of love. It is not about 'not having passion', but it is more about being passionate without a bias or a sense of "I" am loving something. Huxley suggests that our normal ways of looking at love as 'desire' is often a distortion of things around us, because it refers back to the lusts of the self. Rather than seeing things the way they are, the "lust-dieted man", as Huxley puts it, "subordinates the laws of Nature and the spirit to his own cravings" (ibid).

Does Huxley mean that true love has  no 'object' and no  'subject', no 'lover' and no 'loved'? Huxley uses the term 'love knowledge' (p.82) to describe a  kind of pure love of God or all creation which is not tainted by attachment to 'my likes' or particular others. As difficult as it may seem to grasp that this love without attachment is possible, Huxley sticks to this vision through and through. He insists that the only way to true love of the divine or all reality is through a kind of self-emptying, which he describes through various quotes from spiritual teachers (p.86-89). To love is to completely accept things as they are unfolding, things as they are created, and things as they are in their revealing to us. This contrasts with trying to grasp particular qualities in order to hold onto special 'sweet' experiences, including what Huxley calls "the sweetness of God" (p.86).

I think that a lot of what Huxley says in these brief passages can relate to meditation. Regardless of what tradition it comes from, most meditative practices stress the relaxation of the mind, to a point where all the objects of the mind are not seen apart from mind itself. The 'edges' around subject and object start to smooth over, as a meditator stops attaching to coarse thoughts about liking one or disliking another. What results is a kind of lightness of being. I can't say that this lightness of being is anything like traditional notions of 'love' that I internalized while growing up. It certainly  isn't a very stereotypical love that tries to get attention or something from someone. It's rather an open curiosity which treats all things  on an equal par.

One of the dangers of reading Huxley without that first-hand experience of lightness is that it tends to look as though Huxley is advocating a 'resigned' attitude, or even a 'do-gooder' attitude toward charity. His chapter on "mortification" (p.96) attests to this possibility: I need to somehow 'give up' desire altogether in order to embrace 'true love', much the same way that I should eat broccoli instead of chocolate. People give lip service to this idea, without really knowing where they can access its power.

From my own experiences (however shallow) in meditation, I can say that this resignation is not quite what meditation is like. With meditation, one is not trying to even get rid of lusts or desires. Slowly, one is observing that lusts are phenomena of mind, and not these kind of solid, concrete 'givens' of the body. The letting go experience, however, is not at all a kind of 'willful parting' of desires. In fact, it is a kind of letting go of grasping to any ideas whatsoever, including ideas on what love is supposed to be. For example, if I cling to the notion that love should be charitable and not self-interested, all I am doing is adding one thought to another, and creating a conflict between these two thoughts: one that 'desires', the other that says, "desires are bad". This inner conflict creates the illusion that real love will win over desires. But does this happen? It hardly does, because one is relying on will-power to credit one thought over another. In fact, people will need to continue to use will-power to make it seem that one thought is 'better' than the other, when all thoughts are only conditioned and temporary experiences arising in mind.

I believe that Huxley's analysis and definition of true love is correct, but I don't think that one needs to view it as opposite to 'lusts'. Lusts are also part of the mind that can be enjoyed without being indulged. If I observe the sensation of lust, but don't see that there is a 'me' having lust, I can actually just observe it passing through without a 'me' being compelled to act on it. This is hard to realize, but acting on lust is always assuming that there is a solid 'me' that has to act on it or control the situation. But if I view the lust as one part of an unfolding, total environment, does it ever need to be acted upon? In this way, all experienced can be completely accepted without the need to react to one or the other.

Of course, in the end, Huxley's conclusions mesh with my own conclusions, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that love and lust are opposites. Love and lust just exist on very different wavelengths. And it is possible for love to encompass all emotional states without attaching to them.

Huxley, Aldous (1945, 1990), The Perennial Philosophy: An Interpretation of the Great Mystics, East and West. New York: Harper.

The Trouble with Survival

   I am reading a book by Robert Tremmel called Zen and the Practice of Teaching English. While I don't often take to the trendy fad of "Zen and..[fill in the blank]" books, I quite enjoy Tremmel's reflections about how he incorporated Zen and Basho's teachings in particular into his early years as an English teacher. Tremmel describes the importance of reflecting on impermanence, factoring in the mysterious unknowns of teaching life, deep breathing, and honoring the whole life of a teacher--all of which are important points in the holistic education movement. But I also came across a quote that felt particularly relevant to me in work life. Tremmel writes:

"Survival, which most of us do not need to think about most of the time, is the most primitive drive. For all plants and animals it precedes all other concerns; it is the prime directive. Without survival nothing follows. This is as true in the world of the school as it is in the red-in-tooth-and-claw natural world. So it has always seemed ironic to me that the topic of survival does not come up often in textbooks, methods classes, and on-the-record conversations among teachers." (p.41)

Tremmel goes on to describe useful qualities that teachers in training should have in order to 'survive' as teachers, such as the following: ability to think on one's feet (p.47), mindfulness, willingness to take action (p.49), and self-knowledge. His conclusion is that everyone must have the skillful means to succeed in one's profession, which often means anticipating the dangers or trials that others place before teachers: students who deliberately challenge teachers' authority, self-doubt, lack of assertiveness, failure to create opportunities to relate, etc. And Tremmel uses Zen concepts to relate his understanding of survival, citing the example of a zebra fish that narrowly avoids being eaten by leeches by moving unpredictably. Tremmel imputes this tactic to the spontaneity and flexibility afforded by Zen practices.

I find the account that Tremmel makes about survival to be both perhaps true to life and somehow limiting at the same time. One good thing is that Tremmel offers an unsentimental account of what it means to be in a profession of any kind, not just teaching. All professions have both opportunities and threats, for example, and people do need to use wisdom and judgment to stay viable in a social role. In a sense, an advanced degree in teaching, accounting, engineering, etc. is not a guarantee that one's social self will be kept intact in any one of these professions. Under this view, maintaining professional credibility often involves dodging competition coupled with a continual urge toward self-improvement in one's chosen field.


The trouble that I see with survivalism is that it does not quite take into account the interconnections that already exist between beings. Instead, the ethos of survivalism is typically something like 'only the strong will survive'. A modern variation of this principle might be something like, "only the strongest group will survive", so a survivalist will see their body as the basic unit that they must preserve at all costs. There are a few problems that I see with this account of things. The first is the underlying assumption that people survive  only in isolation from other beings (see above zebra fish example). The second assumption is that survival is inherently valuable or precious.

The first problem or issue can be easily refuted, I think, because people rarely live in total isolation. People can usually only survive when they are sharing resources with others: other people, other countries, etc. It makes more sense for me to think that my survival depends on the survival of a whole group or society, instead of taking 'my' survival (the survival of this body) to be of utmost importance.

For the second problem, I think one need only consider; if someone stops being an English teacher due to layoffs, firings etc., what happens to that person? Do they die? Or is it perhaps the case that every moment is a kind of dying, continually in process of being reborn in a new moment? To put it more plainly, English teachers don't lose their existence if, for whatever reason, they don't 'make it' as teachers. Rather than focusing on the skills necessary to maintain one's status as a teacher, it might be equally valuable to have teachers reflect on why they need to "survive" in this profession. Is the need to 'survive as a teacher' so great that one will risk the status of someone else, much less one's own status?

While I agree that the Zen notion of skillful means is relevant in Tremmel's discussion, I question whether survival is always worth it. Sometimes, not surviving in a profession is valuable because it opens the door to other identities, both professional and non-professional. But more importantly, losing a social role can be a training for the bigger  losses, such as loved one's or one's own physical body. Such losses and failures, rather than leading to an automatic course of 'improvement and revisiting' the same situation until one 'gets it right', might instead be invitations to question whether success at any cost is worth the potential harm that a success dream can inflict on both self and others. This is especially so when we attach to one social role as a marker of our existence.

Tremmel, Robert (1999) Zen and the Practice of Teaching English. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook

On A Certain "Badness"

  In his book Writing with Power (1998) Peter Elbow describes bad writing as a potential site for honest and real voice in narrative. He remarks "fear of badness is probably what holds people back most from developing power in writing. Some of that fear is natural in the struggle to develop an acceptable self. But some of it results from teachers who care more about getting rid of badness than about looking for potential excellence. If you care too much about avoiding bad writing, you will be too cautious, too afraid to relinquish control." (p.302).
   Just what does Elbow mean by 'badness', and what could possibly be 'good' about the bad? I have sometimes witnessed movies that were so 'bad' in terms of their acting and premises that they turned out to be 'good' after all.  Troll II is one notorious example of a very 'bad' horror movie that ended up gaining a cult status long after its production in the 1980s. People like 'bad' movies even when they are earnestly panned by every critic. Obviously, the statements 'good' and 'bad' are qualified statements, and it takes a bit of unpacking to know what's being described in these statements.
     I think the easiest way to look at it would be to examine 'Zen' (Japanese for Ch'an) in the context of this nuanced 'badness'. Zen, as it was introduced to Western cultures, was presented as something non-discursive and spontaneous. One of the biggest killers of Zen, according to the early teachers in America, is too much intellectualizing. We don't really want to be indulging that aspect of experience that judges, or splits into 'this' and 'that'.. or objectifies other things and people in some ways. I think that, from this perspective, there is a funny paradox that emerges in Zen circles. That is, the harder one tries to be 'good'' and to get rid of what one deems as bad, the further away one is from the path  of Zen. Why? It's because too  much trying ends up staining the event with a sense of control, of striving, and overlaying things with neat and simple categories. "Too much of a good thing" turns out to have the potential to kill what is really alive inside, by imposing a strict framework over things as they are.
    So, if too much insisting on good is a kind of desire related to the self, what does this have to do with 'badness'? I think that the 'badness' that Elbow is describing is  more than  just an absence of over-dominating goodness. Badness, in this case, has a very specific coloration and context. I think of it as being an accidental glimpse of things-as-such (or things-as-they-are) without makeup, or at least with some of the makeup peeled off. If anyone has ever seen the photographs of Diane Arbus, they will also know the term 'beauty of ugliness'. This badness first challenges the layers of wanting to control that define many aesthetic experiences.
   If I want to decorate the apartment a certain way, I go to great pains to choose the right paint, décor, furniture, etc. and make sure they had better match each other. If I am too into that design, I forget who inhabits the spaces where I decorate. But, to inquire into badness is to inquire into that special, unmediated 'who' that inhabits the neat immaculate spaces in which we make our homes. It is to understand what always slips through the cracks: hence, 'bad' horror movies often depict monsters living under sewage plants, or in swamps. And it is to inquire into the person who does not always look a part, who might not even have a face or a mouth through which to communicate.
   Could what we call 'bad' be an invitation to explore what is formless, soundless and wordless--an abyss that lies below appearances?

Elbow, Peter (1998),Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering The Writing Process. New York: Oxford University Press.

   

turning inward

    I am curious about the expression 'turning inward' and what it really means. This morning and later during the day, for example, I had a glimpse of what it could mean as I was riding public transit. In those times, I could feel that there were two ways for me to look at the situation of having delays on public transit. One is to see that something is affecting me in some way (that is, there is something separate influencing 'me'). The other way is to see that there is only one mind registering the feelings experienced. When I look at it in this latter way, something interesting seems to happen. It is like all the 'feelers' start to pull  inward, as I recognize that there is nobody or nothing really making 'me' upset. All it really is, is one thought trying to reject another thought. For example, I have a thought which says that something is causing inconvenience to me. Then, I start to treat the 'me' as separate from the thought of that inconvenience, which in turn is seen as outside me in some way. What if I stopped and realized that all these experiences are originating from the same source--are all 'me', in other words? What would experience be like if I were to live like this all the time?
    When I tried this approach today of owning the totality of experience as mind, I felt a space opening up between all these thoughts, as though there wasn't such a jammed collision of intermeshing thoughts around inconvenience or something 'getting in the way of' something else. By identifying all the experiences as coming from the same source, I didn't feel any need to reject one thought or seek another. But most importantly, I seemed to (albeit briefly) relax into a space where I don't need to react to any thought at all. One way of putting this might be, there is only one 'mind' to which to place attention. Trying to separate things into separate elements or causes only exacerbates the need to solve or conquer one's experiences through a single 'dominant' thought. But if all the thoughts come from the same source, would there be any sense in using one thought to 'dominate' another? All this desire to 'choose the best thought' often comes from taking the thought to be a person. But what if it is only a thought, among many other thoughts with equal stature? Would I be so determined to win the argument between thoughts that are seen as coming from the same source?
    I think the act of turning inward is reminding myself of the source of my thoughts, and then learning to see them all with the same equanimity. No single thought defines who I am or my potential. But by clinging to a thought, I fail to see this, and end up experiencing vexations about thoughts.

On Finding Onself in a Swamp

   I was probably around ten years old (fifth grade, to be exact), when I first learned about the difference between swamps and marshes. Swamps, if I remember correctly, are heavily saturated wetlands that contain trees and other woody species of plants, while marshes are less woody. What I do recall, in all of that, was the fascination and fear I had around swamplands. Swampland is the place of some of the most interesting horror scenarios, including human-eating crocodiles, or unknown things living in murky places. Swamps seem to embody a kind of primitive subconscious, where there is a lot of uncertainty, and one cannot see their identity or direction in all of it. The fear of being in a swamp is none other than the fear of being eaten before one finds one's 'path' in life. Could swamps also be 'liminal' spaces--transition points to a more integrated kind of maturity? If that is the case, there is value in remaining in a swamp for as long as one can bear, without getting lost in one.
     If swamps and marshes are such dangerous places for people, why is there an insistence on preserving or even cultivating marshlands? Why is it so intriguing to hear the wall of birds, frogs and crickets close to a boggy area? I think the reason is that they symbolize a kind of fervent, rabid fertility that goes unchecked when there is sufficient moisture and plants to sustain life. Frogs, crickets, dragonflies: all seem to emerge from this seemingly spontaneous place of life. And I often wonder where they go in the winter, or how they can possibly survive when the water freezes over on these small bodies of water. One particular marshy place close to where I live on Leslie/Sheppard Avenue, sports a small pond with a lot of algae, moss and frogs in the summer, with the occasional wood-duck as well. But now that it is November, I imagine the place to be pretty barren. What is intriguing is the self-sustaining aspect of swamp life; how all links in the chain seem to interconnect so seamlessly, to create a shared space. But it is also a place where things die, things go underground, things freeze over in an instant. Swamps and marshes are places where there is continual birth, death and renewal, as seen in its many contrasts across the seasons.
    I think that during times of very painful change or transition, going to a swamp can be an interesting and valuable experience. As absurd as it sounds, the swamp is also a place of regression that can be healing: a place to step back and see natural elements working in harmony to create an environment. Without the sense of a self-sustaining ecosystem, I get caught in the illusion that I am in charge of things, or have a divine control over what happens to me in the future. As much as people are called to care, there are ways in which people are cared for as well. Even the oxygen I am breathing is in part from the support of ecosystems that are not in my influence. I can relax in the awareness that there are things that do take care of my body and life, even when I am not able to do so consciously or with any knowledge.
      Sleep is another good example of swamp-territory. Like swamps and marshes, sleep is a world that is very fertile: it's a place where  a lot of body maintenance and digestion takes place in the background, where consciousness yields to a parasympathetic nervous system, and where dreams take over to flush through the mind. Things consigned to the 'underground' of consciousness take their place, without too much intervention from consciousness. And these systems are at work continuously, unbeknownst to me.
     Swamps are also places of inspiration. Life happens and can be a source of beauty and abundance. There is no need to cling to one facet of life when there is so much life integrated together in a single environment that connects with still other environments. In this mind-set, does it make sense  to cling to one relationship or one role in life, as though it were a make-or-break situation?

Somerset Maugham, Complexity and Art

      Walking along the beltline tonight, I spot a raccoon that is strolling along the side of the pathway. It looks quite big in fur, as it eyes us curiously and almost seems to approach us a bit warily before walking toward a neighboring yard. Judy sees if she has any candy to feed the raccoon. But then I notice I have a stale bit of a bagel in my pocket from this morning, which I toss toward the raccoon. Still, it ignores us and prefers to stay where it is. Finally, we see two men behind us who tell us to perhaps beware of any animal that isn't afraid of human beings.  Chances are that this animal might have rabies or some other disease. We trudge along, trying to keep on the path and silently agreeing that lack of fear may be an unnatural response in an animal.

I recall that in my early 20's my favorite book was Somerset Maugham's The Summing Up, the author's autobiography about his life in theatre, art and philosophy. Maugham's book had quite a few interesting gems in it. Among them, Maugham had written about  how he tries to create characters that have dimensions to them, often contradictory and conflicting. Maugham has notoriously written here something to the effect that his characters have a mixture of some of the most disparate elements working together: fear, selfishness, nobility, sacrifice, anger, tolerance, humility, etc. Whereas I normally only see people at specific moments in time, Maugham tries to show the dimensions of personality in the pages of very entertaining books. He believed that writing in this way gave him a glimpse into the way people can have deep contrasts and contradictions co-existing within themselves.

I found myself benefitting from Maugham's perspective, because it gave me less temptation to try to reconcile contrasting parts of myself. When I witness a short story of his such as "Rain", I see a character who is supposedly amoral or lacking in morals (Sadie Thompson) with a large heart to get along with others, contrasted with a moralistic priest who tries to 'convert' Sadie into a narrow idea of good/bad. Which character possesses more depth? They both have depth and meaning to them, but the priest tries to repress that depth somehow...almost as though he were trying to lay himself on a Procrustean bed. Maugham often creates a contrast between characters who aren't particularly 'good' in morals yet possess a generosity of heart, with those who are staunch moralists yet have a 'tight' heart. It reflects a struggle, I think, between wanting to refine or perfect the self with the more spontaneous expression of feelings. At this point, I am not sure which is correct, but I like how Maugham suggests that all people lie on a spectrum. We are all essentially part heathen, part moralist, part spiritual, part material, and so on. And Maugham suggests through his characters that there is no reason to feel surprised to have these inner contradictory standpoints or values.

The philosopher Judith Butler, I think, expresses a similar sentiment, when she describes the notion of 'opacity' in her book Giving an Account of Oneself. For Butler, 'opacity' refers to the way that people can't truly know themselves in entirety, and only get glimpses of the self through these acts of 'giving account' of who they are to others. While I narrate my story, I can only be aware of the details that make sense  to this present context and those who are in my audience. Butler believes that 'opacity' can be a  useful moral concept, because it gives people humility to see that they can never be wholly knowable to themselves or others. I may say "I am this" today, but is this "I" going to be the same as the "I" I claim to be tomorrow? Probably it will likely change over a very short period of time. But this 'humility' takes the form of accepting others' opacity as well. For example, I see someone expressing anger, but then I ask: do I really know why they are angry? Can I conclude that they are "always angry" just because I see them angry in one instance of time or space? According to the view that we are 'opaque' to ourselves or others, we might be slower to react to anger or conclude that someone is 'an angry person'. In fact, anger can coexist with many layers of emotions, including confusion, pride, loneliness, or even longing for justice. For me to condemn or label someone as an angry person is oversimplifying a person's complex opacity.

Master Sheng Yen similarly recommends a nuanced view of compassion, where even criminals are seen as being subject to many layers of conditions. He remarks in Chan and Enlightenment that "When some people create unreasonable incidents or behave illegitimately toward us, in terms of reasonableness, they may have to be sent to prison. From the perspective of compassion, however, their offences may have arisen from their family background, social environment, or physical and psychological factors. So, from a different angle, we forgive them with empathy, and try to help them in various ways. This is called compassion." (p.79). I think one of the great things about Maugham's writing is that it depicts a real and deeply interesting take on compassion. This is not a compassion that tries to repress or moralize, but something that is open to the mysterious opacity of myself and others.

Butler, Judith, (2005), Giving an Account of Oneself.  New York : Fordham University Press,
Sheng Yen (2014), Chan and Enlightenment.  Taipei: Dharma Drum Publishing